Kikwete: Membe gave me a hard time when he joined ACT

Rondo. Former President Jakaya Kikwete yesterday stated that the decision of his former Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister, the late Bernard Membe, to defect to the opposition ACT-Wazalendo and compete for president in 2020 caused him difficulty.

Mr Kikwete, a close friend of Membe, said he still does not know whether it was Zitto Kabwe (the leader of ACT-Wazalendo) who followed and convinced Mr Membe to join and strengthen his party or whether it was the fallen minister who followed him to promote democracy and develop politics.

Mr Kikwete made the statement yesterday during the funeral of the late Membe, who died on May 12 at Kairuki Hospital in Dar es Salaam where he was receiving treatment.

Membe, 69, was laid to rest at the Catholic Church cemetery a few metres from his home, in front of hundreds of mourners, including politicians, diplomats, members of the public, and government leaders.

In his farewell statement, Mr Kikwete, who was Tanzania’s president from 2005 to 2015 while Membe was his minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from 2006-2015, said Mr Membe was brave and did not fear anything when he saw that things were not going right.

He said when Mr Membe decided to leave the party on July 15, 2020, it was his decision, even though it gave him (Kikwete) a hard time.

Membe announced his intention to join the ACT-Wazalendo party several months after the Central Committee of the CCM party, under the former chairman of the party, President John Magufuli, was satisfied with his expulsion from membership on February 28, 2021.

CCM took the decision after accusing him of his unsatisfactory trends from 2014 and saying that for the entire period until his expulsion, he had received other punishments that could have helped him to reform himself.

While at ACT-Wazalendo, Zitto appointed the late veteran politician as the party’s chief advisor, and in the 2020 polls, the party nominated him as its presidential candidate. However, on May 30 last year, Mr Membe rejoined CCM.

However, Mr Kikwete said Membe’s decision to join ACT did not affect their patriotism because he believes in the family everyone has the freedom to join the party they want.

“The truth is that Membe’s decision gave me a difficult time cooperating with him, but I’m thankful that later we were fine because his emotions ended,” said Mr Kikwete.

He said, however, that he knows that one family can have members of Chadema, ACT-Wazalendo, CUF, and CCM but still continue to cooperate, so he considered Membe’s decision to be of that type.

The retired president said, however, that several times he made efforts to resolve the problems that caused Mr Membe to leave CCM.

It will be remembered that Mr Membe criticised the administration of President Magufuli on several occasions, a situation that made him appear rebellious.

He was questioned in various meetings of the CCM party, and he was eventually stripped of his membership in 2020.

However, Mr Membe continued to be a critic of the operation of the government and the CCM party under Magufuli, who died on March 17, 2021, and was replaced by President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Mr Kikwete described Mr Membe as a person who did not accept everything that was being said by Magufuli as others did, but he was rejecting and advising something that he saw as inappropriate for the nation or that the circumstances at the time did not allow it to be done.

For his part, the minister for Information, Communication and Information Technology, Mr Nape Nnauye, said that Mr Membe had taught them patriotism, courage, and standing for the truth in something they saw as not going well.

“We, as Mtama and Rondo people, know the value of Membe and how he dedicated himself to helping development issues; we thank him for the kindness he did to us, and we will continue doing where he ended,” said Mr Nnauye.